xt week, next month, the odds are
a hundred to one she would have treated him in the very same manner, and
have wept for it afterwards with the very same distress.

She had no sooner left the workshop than there cautiously peered out
from behind the chimney of the forge, a face which had already emerged
from the same concealment twice or thrice, unseen, and which, after
satisfying itself that it was now alone, was followed by a leg, a
shoulder, and so on by degrees, until the form of Mr Tappertit stood
confessed, with a brown-paper cap stuck negligently on one side of its
head, and its arms very much a-kimbo.

'Have my ears deceived me,' said the 'prentice, 'or do I dream! am I to
thank thee, Fortun', or to cus thee--which?'

He gravely descended from his elevation, took down his piece of
looking-glass, planted it against the wall upon the usual bench, twisted
his head round, and looked closely at his legs.

'If they're a dream,' said Sim, 'let sculptures have such wisions, and
chisel 'em out when they wake. This is reality. Sleep has no such limbs
as them. Tremble, Willet, and despair. She's mine! She's mine!'

With these triumphant expressions, he seized a hammer and dealt a heavy
blow at a vice, which in his mind's eye represented the sconce or head
of Joseph Willet. That done, he burst into a peal of laughter which
startled Miss Miggs even in her distant kitchen, and dipping his head
into a bowl of water, had recourse to a jack-towel inside the closet
door, which served the double purpose of smothering his feelings and
drying his face.

Joe, disconsolate and down-hearted, but full of courage too, on leaving
the locksmith's house made the best of his way to the Crooked Billet,
and there inquired for his friend the serjeant, who, expecting no man
less, received him with open arms. In the course of five minutes after
his arrival at that house of entertainment, he was enrolled among the
gallant defenders of his native land; and within half an hour, was
regaled with a steaming supper of boiled tripe and onions, prepared,
as his friend assured him more than once, at the express command of his
most Sacred Majesty the King. To this meal, which tasted very savoury
after his long fasting, he did ample justice; and when he had followed
it up, or down, with a variety of loyal and patriotic toasts, he was
conducted to a straw mattress in a loft over the stable, and locked in
there for the night.

The next morning, he fou